BALANCING ACT: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn — a likely mayoral candidate in 2013 — hopes she is well liked, but says what’s most important is that she’s “effective, thoughtful and hardworking.” Photo: Helayne Seidman

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City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is standing in her makeshift office at 250 Broadway, fed up with living out of boxes while her grander offices at City Hall undergo a renovation.

“This lacks any character,” she says, throwing her hands up in the air as she surveys the blank white walls. “If they’re not done by the July 4th weekend, like they promised, I am moving back and I’m sitting on Mike Bloomberg’s lap, I don’t care!”

Last month, Quinn quashed a controversial bill that would have required all city employers to provide paid sick days for their employees.

The measure, which would have guaranteed all workers at least five paid sick days a year, had the support of 35 of 51 council members — enough to overturn a veto from Mayor Bloomberg, who called it “disastrous” for small businesses.

But Quinn ultimately sided with Bloomberg and killed it before it came to a vote.

“It’s a noble goal to get every worker paid sick leave,” she told The Post in a wide-ranging interview last week. “I don’t want to implement a noble goal in a way that has the consequence of putting small businesses out of business.”

For now, she said, she’s relegated the issue to the back burner. “When the economy rebounds, I’ll re-entertain the question.”

Pro-labor groups interpreted the move as just another example of Quinn’s falling into line with Bloomberg and the city’s pro-business interests — just like when she reversed her position to support Bloomberg’s 2008 call to extend term limits.

They saw it as a litmus test for where she’ll stand in 2013, should she decide — as is widely expected — to run for mayor.

“Politically speaking, there are folks on the left who will never forgive her for this,” said Republican Councilman James Oddo, of Staten Island, a longtime friend and ally of Quinn’s. “It came at tremendous political risk.”

Quinn’s unique challenge over the next two years — when she will be term-limited out of the City Council — is navigating between a pro-business mayor and a pro-union council. Part of that, some analysts say, is separating herself from Bloomberg without alienating the man who has been one of her biggest backers.

“Everything we do, at any point in our term, people ascribe political motivation to it,” said Oddo. “The closer you get to the mayor’s race, the more she will hear about it.”

As the only likely female and gay mayoral candidate in 2013, “she’ll play up identity politics as much as possible between now and then,” said one labor source. “But her vote on term limits, combined with these other issues, gives other candidates a real opportunity to make the case that she’s not progressive. She’s just more of the same.”

SITTING in her office at the end of another 13-hour day, Quinn bristles at the notion she is playing politics.

“I don’t agree with this ‘caught between two lovers’ scenario,” she says, raising her already booming voice. “Paid sick leave was a challenging decision to make, but it wasn’t the first, and it won’t be the last. In life, you like to do things where everyone’s happy, and that’s not realistic. I take great offense to the idea that I would misuse this job for a political future. Frankly, the job is too constant, too significant and too big to think you have that luxury, anyway.”

The council is currently awaiting Quinn’s decision on a living-wage bill, which would force businesses that receive city subsidies to pay workers at least $10 an hour, or 38 percent more than the minimum wage. Bloomberg thinks the bill is another job-killer for New York.

Insiders said they expect Quinn to align herself again with business interests and oppose the measure. Even so, she still enjoys the support of some powerful liberal union leaders, like Pat Purcell of Local 1500, which represents 19,000 New York workers.

In 2006, Quinn, now 44, became the City Council’s first female and first openly gay speaker. But in many ways she is a very traditional city figure — a hard-nosed Irish pol.

The daughter of a union electrical engineer and a social worker who grew up in Glen Clove, LI, Quinn worked her way up through the ranks of community organizers, starting with the city’s Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, to become chief of staff to then-City Councilman Tom Duane. She was elected to represent Chelsea on the City Council in 1999.

Along the way, she’s impressed colleagues with workaholic tendencies. “She knows policy,” said City Councilwoman Gale Brewer, the ar chitect of the sick- leave bill, who’s clashed with Quinn. “She’s good on policy and the history of the city.”

Despite her liberal background, she’s also become a darling of the business community. Her votes have tended to be conservative on economic issues and liberal on social ones.

“She’s direct, smart and makes decisions based on facts rather than politics,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City.

Some councilmembers who have sat in budget meetings with her, however, describe Quinn as a micromanaging “street fighter” who finishes people’s sentences and often raises her voice. “She does her arguing behind closed doors,” Oddo said.

“I’d like to think that I’m nice, and I’d like to think that I’m funny,” Quinn said. “I’d like to think people want to have lunch with me. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t much matter. What matters is, am I effective, thoughtful, hardworking and inclusive?”

Quinn starts most days around 7 a.m. at the Moonstruck diner in Chelsea, where she likes to take breakfast meetings. She prefers bingeing on TV to cracking open a book, she admits.

“I’m big for ‘Glee,’ ” she said and then rat tled off every show she DVRs: “Grey’s Anat omy,” “Charmed,” “Army Wives,” “Broth ers & Sisters,” “Oprah,” “Say Yes To the Dress,” “Law & Order.”

“I’m not going to watch ‘Law & Order: LA,’ ” she said fiercely. “I think it’s an outrage, and I’m offended by it, and I won’t even entertain the idea.”

She’s also a closet fashionista. “I love knowing what the color of the season is,” she said. “Animal print is huge this season, but it doesn’t exactly scream, ‘City Council speaker.’ The best thing for an elected official is to have clothes that never get commented on.”

Quinn’s appearance, however, has undergone a noticeable transformation over the last year. Like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Quinn has lost a substantial amount of weight, though she doesn’t know how much — “I don’t have a scale because I get obsessive.”

“Gillibrand had a nutritionist. I don’t have one. I’m just trying to eat less,” she said. “I want to be the person who gets up at 5 a.m. and gleefully trots out to run, but I’m not. I’m just not eating bread and thinking a lot about exercising.”

QUINN came out as a lesbian when she was 25 and has in the past described it as “the end of a long process.” Her devout Irish Catholic father was shocked and less than thrilled, at first.

She remembers Lawrence Quinn’s reaction the first time she was introduced on TV as the first woman and openly gay speaker: “He yelled at the newsreader, ‘You forgot Irish, you bum!’ ”

Gay issues remain a personal priority to Quinn. She and her longtime partner, corporate lawyer Kim Catullo, will not get married until they can legally tie the knot in New York.

“I’m very optimistic that we will get a bill passed in the next session, and I’m not the most optimistic gal you ever met in your life,” Quinn said. “Governor Cuomo will be extremely helpful. We’ve had a lot of conversations about it.”

As she heads into her final years as speaker, Quinn refuses to speculate about her own potential run for mayor or what a post-Bloomberg political landscape in New York might look like.

“Who the hell knows about 2013?” she said, dismissing it with a wave. “Hopefully, the recession will be over, unemployment will be lower. Hopefully, the nursing shortage will be less, the Yankees will have won three World Series. Everything will be different. We could have a tall mayor or a medium-size mayor. Who knows?”

For now, Quinn said, she’s focused on creating and keeping jobs in New York.

“It’s infuriating that we have the best universities and hospitals and we’re a place where great ideas are born and Boston and San Diego are the places where great ideas go to become products,” she said. A biotech tax credit on the city level would help attract the industry, she said.

As she gets up to leave for her next appointment, she can’t help showing that underneath the no-nonsense façade, she’s not above a compliment every woman likes to hear. “Thank you for saying I look thin,” she says, letting out her signature belly laugh. “I’m not even wearing my Spanx!”

Facts and figures

City Council

Member: 51

Democrats: 46

Republicans: 5

Progressive Caucus: 12 Democrats founded the left-wing bloc last March.

Speaker: Christine Quinn, elected to the City Council in 1999, elected speaker in 2006, term-limited out in 2014.

Important issues: Balancing city’s $63.1B budget — with gaps of $3.3B beginning in 2012; voting on a living-wage bill, which would force businesses to pay workers at least $10 an hour.